Post-launch-mortem of Videotones

Category: VAS | No Comments | Posted on November 28, 2005

Video ringtones, priced around Rs 20-30, are currently available only on Symbian Series 60 phones.

Roughly 20 per cent of mobile phone users form the category of early adapters and this largely comprises of the youth. Music is the main staple when it comes to applications like ringtones and the market is registering a three-digit growth. Amongst the value-added services in India that are estimated to be around $125 million constituting 20 per cent of revenues of mobile operators, ringtones form the largest segment.

Lets hear it from the players in the Videotones business.

Bibhu Kumar, VP Marketing, IMImobile, a value added services provider:

The market response suggests that polytones are being considered outdated amongst the early adapters while true tones and videotones will be the new big trend in coming days,”

Arun Gupta, COO of Mauj, a leading mobile content aggregator:

“Over the next four years we expect close to 60 per cent of the new 100 million handsets that get added in India will be high end and support video ringtones and with faster wireless networks, we expect video ringtones to form as high as 50-70 per cent of the ringtone category,”

India is expected to add more than 100 million users by 2007. And the growth is expected to come from semi-urban / rural markets where the demand for higher end phones may not be much. Therefore, the above quoted 60% figure given by Arun Gupta seems to be optimistic and presumably includes upgrades from existing users. The current market share of popular Series 60 phones like Nokia 6600 and their growth rates would give some indication.

According to Gupta, on handsets where consumers have a choice between video ringtones and poly, as high as 30% of the consumers already prefer video ringtones.

And which are the tones that are selling like hot cakes?

“The video categories which are moving fastest are Bollywood and international pop albums,” says Kumar while according to Gupta it is the original animations with original non-film based music that is doing well.

Source: Economic Times